Dr Modi!

Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi is a sad man today. He wanted to uproot corruption. But those who enjoyed the “sweets of corruption (read Sonia Gandhi)” are creating problems for him and are not allowing him to move ahead with his grand strategy of “Development.” So he said addressing the Indian Diaspora in Qatar. Ha, what a sad and dejected man is our dear Prime Minister!

When he talked of corruption he obviously did not mean Eknath Khadse the outgoing Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra and the OBC strongman or his great corruption free party the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). For months the media rather apologetically has been carrying the story of Khadse indulging in blatant corruption, land grabbing and seeking crores in bribes.

Filling the OBC leader vacuum in Maharashtra BJP government, the Modi/Amit Shah duo is now grooming Irrigation minister Girish Mahajan as the new OBC face of that government, totally forgetting about the irrigation scam, awarding contracts worth Rs 500 crore to dubious Sanghi contractors, which broke out in January 2015, within months of BJP coming to power in Maharashtra. But Dr Diabetes has no prescription here.

He can only see corruption in Sonia and Rahul apparently attempting to retain hold on National Herald, founded by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. He freed the Italian Marine charged with murder to secure some way to implicate Sonia in the Augusta Westland deal. Never mind that all evidence so far points at the Vivekananda International Foundation (VIF) alumnus former Air Force chief Shashidhar Pal Tyagi, hinting at close proximity to the current National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval and a host of other Sanghis, associated with the VIF, including current Prasar Bharti chairman.

Pankaja Munde’s scams abound from making a killing on supplying biscuits to little children going to schools to awarding contract for the Dam in Jalna, she is making money hands over fist. But our Prime Minister is rooting out corruption. He obviously did not mean Khadse or Munde or Mahajan when he talked of sweets being denied to some people. Here again our “Na Khaoonga, na khane doonga” Prime Minister simply turned a blind eye to this.

Does anyone talk any more about the vyapak Vyapam scam, the humungous corruption scandal in medical admissions spread all over Madhya Pradesh and running for over a decade now, involving not just the chief minister but the RSS big guns? Does this word even sound familiar to the likes of Arnab Goswami, Zee News and the News X channel? Surely Modi does not remember any of that nor do our great crusaders against corruption. Not to mention the Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya escapade, one patronized by the who’s who of BJP Mahlia brigade from Sushma Swaraj to Vasundhara Raje and the other facilitated by of all the people Arun Jaitley.

As for the Man who heads the portfolio to bring back or at least curb black money and the loot of Indian banks he has assured the bankers today itself that he will protect them well if they clean their slate (meaning simply write off all the bad loans worth Rs 1.40 lakh crore of the corporate big wigs) and return wearing a white shirt. Never mind if the vest is stinking dirty. Jaitely is a responsible minister and when he said this he meant business for simultaneously we see that the CBI, under the Prime Minister’s direct supervision has dropped cases against the five top executives of LIC, LIC Housing, Bank of India, Central Bank of India and Punjab National Bank and three top guns of Money Matters Financial Services, for sanctioning in 2010 corporate loans running into thousands of crores. Cases against these top guns of the Indian banking world were registered in 2010, implying in the UPA era. But our Dr. Diabetes found no evidence of blood sugar here!

Now of course Shiv Sena has slowly fallen in line but in the run up to the Maharashtra assembly polls the Sena had exposed a scam in the apparent Government patronage to popularizing LED bulbs. The Sena in its write up in Saamna had alleged that there was scam of the magnitude of Rs 20,000 crore in the bulk purchase and distribution of LED bulbs by the Government in Maharashtra alone and need it be said that the fingers were raised at another Modi poster boy Power and Coal Minister Piyush Goyal. No enquiry was held. And we all, Sena included, have forgotten about that.

Modi’s front for all his financial investments Gautam Adani is a defaulter of the banks to the tune of Rs 72000 crore and his Diamond merchant friends from Gujarat constitute the maximum number of those who have been stacking unaccounted wealth in British Virgin Islands and whose names figures in the Panama papers leak. But Modi is an honest man, determined to root out corruption and is agonized by these corrupt Congressmen not allowing him to clean the augean stables. Poor soul! What a pity!

KHANKE, Iraq — The advertisement on the Telegram app is as chilling as it is incongruous: A girl for sale is “Virgin. Beautiful. 12 years old…. Her price has reached $12,500 and she will be sold soon.”

The posting in Arabic appeared on an encrypted conversation along with ads for kittens, weapons and tactical gear.

While the Islamic State group is losing territory in its self-styled caliphate, it is tightening its grip on the estimated 3,000 women and girls held as sex slaves. In a fusion of ancient barbaric practices and modern technology, IS sells the women like chattel on smartphone apps and shares databases that contain their photographs and the names of their “owners” to prevent their escape through IS checkpoints.

The thousands of Yazidi women and children were taken prisoner in August 2014, when IS fighters overran their villages in northern Iraq with the aim to eliminate the Kurdish-speaking minority because of its ancient faith. Since then, Arab and Kurdish smugglers managed to free an average of 134 people a month.